A Private Cathedral (Dave Robicheaux 23)

“What do you mean, pack—” I began.

“Bad choice of words,” Daigle said. “His fingers and privates got worked over pretty bad. There were pliers and a metal file on the floor. The file had scorch marks on it. The burner on the stove was lit. Whoever done that is a real piece of shit.”

“He’s going to make it, right?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “If somebody can clean what happened out of his head.”

I clicked on my flashlight and walked down the roadside. There were no skid marks on the asphalt or tire indentations by the rain ditches. A human arm lay in the middle of the two-lane, and a leg farther on, the foot sheathed in a pointy-nose Tony Lama. Farther on I saw the torso of a man, most of the clothes gone, one arm and one leg attached, the knee snapped backward. I shined my flashlight on the rain ditch. The head of a man with silver hair bobbed among the cattails.

“Mother of God,” Helen said.

I shone the light up and down the road. Blood was splattered all over the asphalt. But there were no drag marks, no spot that showed impact with a vehicle, no tire print in the blood, no streaks of grease or rust or tissue of the victim.

Helen was breathing audibly through her nose, her hands on her hips. “How do you read this shit?”

“Gideon Richetti.”

“Goddamm it, don’t say that.”

“Let’s talk to Julian.”

“You know what will happen around here if this gets out? ‘Sheriff’s department opens investigation into ghost from the seventeenth century.’?”

“Gideon is a revelator.”

She stuck her fingers in both ears. “I’m not going to listen to this. This is a hit-and-run, probably by a big truck. The body got snagged in the undercarriage. Does bwana copy?”

“That’s crap and you know it,” I said. I clicked off my light.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she said at my back.

“The medics drove away with Julian while we were jacking off. I’ll be at Iberia General. I’ll bum a ride.”

She grabbed me by the arm and spun me around. “Outside of Clete Purcel, I’m the best friend you ever had, Dave. Don’t talk like that to me again.”

“Wake up, Helen. We’re dealing with the supernatural. We just can’t tell anybody. Sometimes the truth isn’t an easy burden to bear.”

* * *

SHE TOLD ME to take the cruiser while she waited for the coroner. On the way to the hospital, I called Clete and told him Julian was being admitted and asked him to meet me there. “I think Delmer Pickins tortured him.” I said. “There’re body parts scattered all over the road in front of Julian’s house. I suspect they belong to Pickins.”

“I had a few drinks before I went to bed,” Clete said. “I’m having a little trouble following this.”

“It’s Gideon.”

“I knew that was coming.”

“In or out?” I said.

“Let me brush my teeth. We ROA at the ER.”

He was there in fifteen minutes. His face looked poached. I could still smell liquor on him. I put a roll of mints in his hand.

“My liver feels like an anvil,” he said. “Where’s Father Julian?”

“Behind the curtain,” I said.

Clete had seen the worst of the worst in free-fire zones. But this was different. The wounds were inflicted systemically, engineered to draw the maximum in pain and humiliation. Clete’s face was bloodless and as tight as a drumhead, his green eyes shiny. “Hey, Father,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I thought I’d better come down here and make sure you didn’t run off with one of the nurses. Like the Blue Nun running off with the Christian Brothers or something. That was in a poem I read by a Catholic nun.”